With a rapidly growing trend of mobile and remote data access over high-speed communication networks, such as provided by long term evolution (LTE) cellular networks, accurate delivery and deciphering of data streams has become increasingly challenging and difficult. For example, in a multi-user LTE system, the frequency offset associated each user is independent of the other users. Frequency offset causes clockwise or counter clockwise incremental phase rotation of the received signal samples. The current LTE standard constrains the frequency offset that can be estimated to a range of (−1 kHz to 1 kHz). However, performance requirements specified in the LTE specification forces baseband system manufacturers to extend the frequency offset estimation range. For example, to provide communications to users riding on high speed trains, expanding the frequency offset estimation to a range that covers (−1.7 kHz to 1.7 kHz) may be necessary.
Therefore, it is desirable to have a mechanism for frequency offset estimation that can accurately estimate a wider range of frequency offset to satisfy high speed performance requirements of wireless communication systems.